The simulations - what they should be like

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There are things for which they should be included, but since I don't know what will the Flashpoint 2 gameplay structure be. I'm not sure if they were all appropriate. But since all the topics are just "do this, do that" I'd like to discuss some basic things.

Most of the suggestions I've read were acctually about what went wrong in OFP1 (I think BI guys know what went wrong, hey, it's their first game). I will try to point out the things which should be in every simulation of life-war-combat and might not concern OFP2 directly, but I think its worth to think about it. Please be patient because I'll try to be very thorough and systematic at the beginning. So relax and get yourself a drink . I must also say that I haven't played the latest games because my computer is rather old (it can't run OFP, I played it at my friends' , but I try to keep in touch with the gaming scene.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THE PLACES YOU'VE NEVER BEEN TO?

The first and most basic problem of all (by my opinion) is that we're trying to simulate something that is the most evil and horrifying that can happen to mankind? Why? Is there anybody who would like to fight in a real war? If you say yes, OFP fan, you've never been to war or you're need to visit your shrink and have a little chat about your childhood . So, here's our first anwser: you can't turn a real war into fun or you won't sell anything. Things must be balanced. Although OFP can be very frustrating, I belive that it didn't reach the degree of realism which would endanger its gameplay, but other things did (like the interface, which is not problematic only in OFP but almost in every simulation). And as said in the title, how do you know you're simulating a war if you've never been to one?

THE KEYBOARD

The realism of the games is actually limited by the number of keys on your keyboard, because in last 10 years everything got accelerated (graphics, sound) but the keyboard (accelerated keyboard, what would it look like? . You can't do things so fast on your keyboard as in real life, and so many thing all at once (I am talking about a moderate player, not some freak who spends a game playing 25hrs a day). So I belive the next big thing in game playing and the hardware should be the keyboard. Commands must be as intuitive as possible, or at least to enable fast learning curve.

HARDWARE NIGHTMARE

The other big trouble is the hardware capabilities. Is BI capable to implement all the requests on this forum, and even more important, on how powerful computers will be this game run on in 2004, including all the bells and whistles? Simulation is a quite demanding thing, but if Doom3 will be released in 2003 as they promise, people will have a reason to buy a new computer . What about a version for 64-bit Opterons? I heared the news that Unreal Tournament 2003 is already being optimised into 64-bit version.

GRAPHICS

The next thing I would like to stumble upon is the field of view, although I think this is completely a hardware problem. A man covers with his two eyes a 180° view, from that we can focus on field of about 90° maximum (correct me if I'm wrong) and when we're looking at a 17 inch monitor, we're are actually looking thorugh a scope or a tiny window, the rest of our view becomes useless, but in close quarters combat, it's the 180° view that can save us by seenig the enemy faster. But, as I said its a hardware problem, and it would be really bizarre if we had a 180° view on our monitor (something like alien view in Alien vs. Predator). So much about "ultra-realistic graphics" .

SOUND

The sound. What I miss in sims is the sounds that a man we play produces, like breathing, coughing, heart beating, being deaf... The problem with these man made sounds is that we can't record them properly. Have you ever recorded your voice on a tape and when you played it you sounded differently? For those who don't know this yet, our voice is transfered also through our bones, muscles to the ear, not only through the air. Thus, we have a problem of recording authentic sounds of our body. And when there's a massive blow beside your ear (a bomb for example), shouldn't be there ringing in our head, or even deafness for a few moments? And another problem I see is hardware again. We have Dolby Digital 7.1 (which isn't supported by any game) and it makes sound all aroud us, but what about above us (like planes) or below us (our feet)?!

ARTIFICIAL IDIOTISM

A.I. Not the movie but something less intelligent and without emotions Where are emotions?! I ASK YOU ONCE MORE, WHERE ARE THE EMOTIONS ?!?! We're people, not robots So, simulate emotions, fear, nervousness, morale, and many, many other things. Or at least take a look to Close Combat series, which is old about 8 years and has this from the begining. I want to hear yelling, crying, panic, see courage and anxiety. Those dudes in the game must show through their speech and reactions how they feel. Don't even dare to make an icon which shows the soldier's mood, at least not on hard difficulty level. I don't want to discuss tactics and intelligence yet, because I hope BI works hardly on it (still, improve close combat AI, because they act like mushrooms on 20 metres, no offence .

DIFFICULTY

Ah, yes, a lot-of-million-euros worth question. How to satisfy the hard core players and moderate players together? I don't know why the difficulty levels easy-medium-hard are not used for this as they should (although they are in OFP quite well managed). In most of the games "hard" means you get less ammo and medkits, on the other hand there are many more enemys, tougher to beat, better reflexes and other stuff. This is nonsense to me and should be avoided specially in simulations. Instead of this, difficulty levels should be used to increase realism as we play on higher levels and of course sacrifice gameplay. This means, for example, playing on "hard", no savegames, no HUDs, A.I. makes better decisions, and stuff like this.

OK, this was a few (not all) general ideas how things should be improved if I was a game developer. I didn't mention things for which I (for now) belive they were already well discussed on other topics (like game physics). I'll add some more direct suggestions for OFP2 in a few days. I wonder how much attention does BI pay to the demands that players make for OFP2. I would be very glad if anyone anwsered this question.

[Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX 0]

Quote[/b] ]I must also say that I haven't played the latest games because my computer is rather old (it can't run OFP, I played it at my friends' , but I try to keep in touch with the gaming scene.

How do you know games you haven't played?

Quote[/b] ]So, here's our first anwser: you can't turn a real war into fun or you won't sell anything

Ohhh yes you can.  Simulated war can be fun, no matter how realistic it is, because its simulated.

A lot of people who play flashpoint either have military experience (Seriously.  I do.  I know at least 3 other people who play regularly on the server I play on who do as well.) or know a fair bit about it, because of the type of people it tends to appeal to.  True, very few have actually been in a real blood and guts firefight, but that doesn't mean noone has.  And the tactics and methods we have been trained in are the same as they would be in combat.  (Although we might not play like we were in real combat, thats because OFP isn't realistic enough - covering fire doesnt work, etc.)

Quote[/b] ]You can't do things so fast on your keyboard as in real life, and so many thing all at once

I have to disagree again.  In OFP you can perform many simultaneous manouvres that would be extremely hard to do IRL, with a few simple keystrokes.  Reloading a mag while issuing orders while looking around while checking your map.

Mouse and keyboard is one of the best, most flexible control systems possible.  Every couple of months a 'new solution for gamers' comes out, and it always flops miserably because it does not have the same abilities as a simple keyboard and mouse.  If you look at the younger generation of gamers, they take to mouse and keyboard naturally and intuatively in almost any game (the ones that aren't smacktards, that is).  Perhaps the problem lies in what is attached to the keyboard via your fingertips?

;)

I didn't understand the hardware part.

180 degree view would be nice, but there are some considerations.

1) most solutions to this make the perspective horribly distorted, like in AVP or HL (half life) with the fov set to 180.

2)  Having a bigger field of view that is double the old field of view means rendering twice as many polys as before.  So basically you need double the machine to get the same visual quality. At least.

Quote[/b] ]And when there's a massive blow beside your ear (a bomb for example), shouldn't be there ringing in our head, or even deafness for a few moments?

Thats easy enough to do, some games have that already.  Its a fairly simple programming issue.

Its possible to use doppler and audio engineering to make sounds appear to be coming from above or below, again, its a programming thing but entirely possible.  To get the feeling of sound from your feet, you need a big bass speaker.  In OFP I can tell when an AFV is coming before most other people because I feel the rumbling in my feet from my bass speaker.

Emotions:  The voices in OFP are pretty bad, but this is because they were going to be totally robot like until the last moment when they decided to make them more human.

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I have played the games on my friends computer (I get a new one by the end of this summer, I hope), and I know how they work, enough to have the guts to talk about it  

About simulating combat: I didn't say that things like tactics and methods are wrong, I'm sure they did some studies about that, but are these games capable of the same stress and fear as you feel it in a true war? I would agree with you that most of the gamers are playing the kamikaze way comparing to the real combat (if you get killed, you can still load the previous save until you finally make it right). There's no real fear of death. I read somewhere that in WWII only about 20% was shooting at the enemy (infantry) but in OFP everybody turn into gun nuts shooting at everything that moves (and the bushes ocasionally   ) And yes, I totally agree with you about simulated wars are fun because they're simulated.

The keyboard reply: yes, it's true, there's still no better control system as you said, but it's quite frustrating to me to preform a balet with my fingers to tell a soldier to advance, while reloading the clip, looking for the boogies (I'm exaggerating, don't take it too literally). You can move your body parts (like head, legs, the body) much more independently in real life (and much more faster too). There was some progress achieved in OFP but not a satisfactory. In RL you use your whole body to interact with the world, in games only your fingers (and voice maybe).

Hardware is trouble because it limits the things which could be included in the game. Lets face it, a true combat does not include two squads of infantry and four tanks on each side like in OFP (not to mention the logistic support). But as you increase the number of entities in the game, more detailed world, intelligent AI, realistic physics, etc. it is more likely that your computer is going to freeze. Just take a look at Doom3 leak, and try to cross it with OFP and the suggestions on this forum, mmmm, yummy, isn't it? But on what you'll run this thing, Earth Simulator?

180° : yes I tried the view in Quake2 and it's totally outlandish (actually a fish-eye view isn't it?)

The problem about the sound issues I mentioned is that noone seems to notice these kind of things although they're quite obvious and easy to programme them.

Oh, and one more thing: if simulation of war was totally realistic, most of the players would probably suffer psychic damage because of stress and other nonsense that happens in war, becouse war isn't just about how tossing a grenade into a bunker, but also waiting, smoking, cursing all the time, moral questions about stealing, pillaging, killing children and women. When they will implement things like that it will be very real, but no one won't like to play it. Combat is just one part of war and not the biggest.

[haunted 0]

Quote[/b] ]Combat is just one part of war and not the biggest

How are wars won then?

[Commander-598 0]

Quote[/b] ]I want to hear yelling, crying, panic, see courage and anxiety.

AvP1 did this rather well. A shame AvP2 really sucked at that.

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Quote[/b] ]Combat is just one part of war and not the biggest

How are wars won then?

Yeah, yeah, of course, but you might fight 20% percent of the whole war time, the rest is guardin, pointless patrolling, pillaging, terrorising the civilians, burning the houses. When I meant "not the biggest" I meant the amount of time you spend for fighting. Of course, it is the most important

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Quote[/b] ]I want to hear yelling, crying, panic, see courage and anxiety.

AvP1 did this rather well. A shame AvP2 really sucked at that.

Yes AvP1 was the only game where I was sorry to kill a civilian. She just crouched there an cried. But still not enough convincingly . I wan't to see the fear in their eyes.

[NAA_Us_Marine 0]

You have the total wrong perspective of a war if you ask me. and why so many posts if you have only played this at your friends? I feel you havent been able to check out the "Full" detail in this game with all these posts your putting down saying how they should improve on everything.

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You have the total wrong perspective of a war if you ask me. and why so many posts if you have only played this at your friends? I feel you havent been able to check out the "Full" detail in this game with all these posts your putting down saying how they should improve on everything.

I might be too enthusiastic, I admit it.

What is the real war like? Can you tell me? I was in war for 10 days when I was 6 years old. Luckily the war ended without any big damage or losses. But there was the anxiety present.

I've played OFP enough to understand the principles it is based on. I don't care about the details, we all know that there will be more detailed world in OFP2. I'm interested in the principles of the games, AI mostly. And I would just like to point out some things that I don't see in the simulations, but these missing things are playing some key roles in real worls (AI, for example).

I think that the game developers are dumping the importance of social reality, which is sometimes more important than physical reality.

[NAA_Us_Marine 0]

social has nothing to do with a game its a game! you arent going to be talking to ur friends saying that your friend died in war or anything on a game.

[Heatseeker 0]

The way i see it opf is not a fun game, its one of those games were 1 bullet is enough to kill you, the game is rather stressing and intense when we find ourselves in the midle of a firefight, when i play it i actually fear for my virtual life and i do my best to keep my a.i. soldiers alive. I dont think it simulates real war, it just has more realistic gameplay compared to most fps games out there. I hope BIS will create a better war simulation with opf2 in regards of vehical use, a.i. behavior, tactics and weapon handling, combat situations and military procedures, better interaction with the invironment and more believable a.i. is on top of my wish list .

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The way i see it opf is not a fun game, its one of those games were 1 bullet is enough to kill you, the game is rather stressing and intense when we find ourselves in the midle of a firefight, when i play it i actually fear for my virtual life and i do my best to keep my a.i. soldiers alive. I dont think it simulates real war, it just has more realistic gameplay compared to most fps games out there. I hope BIS will create a better war simulation with opf2 in regards of vehical use, a.i. behavior, tactics and weapon handling, combat situations and military procedures, better interaction with the invironment and more believable a.i. is on top of my wish list .

Realism in games would be fun only if you pressed escape and you'd be glad that this is really happening. But now, if I get killed I just get angry because I did some stupid mistake.

A game should frighten the player, that he would be saying "it only a game, calm down, this isn't happening" Than we could say it is really realistic.

[ale2999 0]

Ofp gave me those emotions in the beginning, but then I got good

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OFP seems quite realistic in the overall picture, but in details it is a short-track runner (when the vehicles start to bounce and aeroplanes can't fly very high, when you find out that tanks have only coaxial machinegun and much less ammo than in real world and other similar stuff)